Very entertaining. Turns out that I had heard of or read most of these "lies" somewhere even though I am not American. I cannot remember where exactly.
One of the most interesting in my opinion is that there were in fact eight presidents of the United States before George Washington. I asked...
This is rather mind-boggling when you think about it. This Dutch bond has been paying interests non-stop for the last 400 years!
Perplexity News: Oldest Bond Turns 400
"The world's oldest perpetual bond, issued in 1624 by the Dutch water authority Hoogheemraadschap Lekdijk Bovendams, recently...
The following article is AI generated and comes from Perplexity news.
Based on reports from Johns Hopkins University, archaeologists have unearthed evidence of the world's oldest known alphabetic writing in an ancient Syrian tomb, dating back to approximately 2400 BCE and predating previously...
This video captures exactly how I've been feeling all my adult life about modern architecture. Many famous architect strive to create the most original buildings possible without thinking about their functionality, how it fits within the city where it is built, or even whether they are...
Potsdam is Germany's Versailles. Located Southwest of Berlin it became the seat of the Hohenzollern family, rulers of Brandenburg, then Prussia, then the whole of Germany. The city was carpet bombed by the British just a few days before the end of World War II and further disfigured by the...
Have you ever wondered how many ancestors you had 200 years ago, or 500 years ago, 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago? Venture to take a guess? It's easy enough to count how many ancestors we have after 3 generations (8 great-grand-parents), 4 generations (16 g-g-grandparents), etc. But what about...
I was wondering what Europe would look like if the various separatist movements had their way. I checked the list of active separatist movements in Europe and selected only the regions with reasonable claims of independence based on the percentage of population supporting independence. This is...
Have you ever wondered what the oldest board games were? Which country has produced the most board games that are usually found in people's homes? Or the most board games per capita? Here is a table to summarise it all.
Board game
Year invented
Place invented
The Game of Life
1860
USA...
A friend of mine is starting a new YouTube channel (Sons of Mars) to explain famous historical battles using video scenes he shot while playing Total War in high definition and edited with a special programme. He plans to recreate mostly battles from the Antiquity and teh Middle Ages. It looks...
I have just written a new article attempting to answer the question: Who were the best and worst Kings and regent Queens of France in history?
As usual your feedback is welcome.
Genetics
Percentage of genetic similarity between humans and animals
Genetic inheritance: why people can be closer to one parent than the other genetically
How adventurers, outcasts and remainers shape the evolution of society
Are humans genetically programmed to live in hierarchical...
I have checked Ragnar Lothbrok's genealogy to find if he had male line descendants to this day. It would not be surprising considering that he had eight sons and they became powerful rulers of their own. The main issue is that the genealogy is disputed. If enough Y-DNA lines survived, it would...
If you ever searched for a country's GDP per capita chances are that you saw a chart showing its evolution over the years. For example the United States had a GDP per capita (PPP) of $54,000 in 2017, but only $37,000 back in 1990 (measured in constant 2011 International Dollars), about the same...
I am currently reading the book series Marius' Mules about the Gallic Wars (first 9 volumes, one book per year) and the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey. It is historical fiction, but written based on Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Caesar's book is notoriously tedious to read and...
I recently finished reading Alberto Angela's I tre giorni di Pompei (The [last] three days of Pompeii), in which he mentions that mozzarella didn't exist at the time, but was invented in the 5th century, at the end of the Roman empire. Wikipedia disagrees and says that the earliest buffalo milk...
The work on the K12b admixture by historical culture gave me the idea to show the evolution of genetic admixtures over time by region. I have started with the Near East and East Mediterranean.
I long wanted to compare the genomes of various Germanic tribes to see how similar they were with each others and how much they resembled modern Europeans. I have started doing it here with an analysis of Lombard, Anglo-Saxon, Suebi/Alemanni and Ostrogothic genomes.
In short, Lombards and...
I have created a page dedicated the the genetics of ancient Gauls. I calculated the Dodecad K12b average percentages for 16 Gaulish samples and ran them against modern populations in Vahaduo to obtain the closest matches.
In the last few days I have worked on finding the haplogroups of the clan chiefs of Scottish clans. Almost all of them have extensive surname DNA projects, so it was easy in most cases. The list includes most of the peerage of Scotland from Viscount to Duke. Highland clans belonging to R1b-L21...
I researched Wyatt Earp's ancestry on Geni and found that he descends from Joshua Earp (1706-1771). The Earp DNA Project has a lineage descending from Josiah Jackson Earp (1761-1844) and his son Allen Milford Earp (1796-1862). It turns out that Josiah is also Joshua's grandson, so it is the same...
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